My daily readings 03/20/2012

And like any startup you’re bound to run into a few setbacks in the beginning and this venture was no different. In a bittersweet twist, one of the designers was offered a position at Apple while the other was headhunted from both Google and Facebook. This was a pretty big concern for me, 2/3 of the core team were offered positions at some of the biggest and most innovative companies in the world. Both have pledged their allegiance to this startup however I will keep you updated with any negotiations or activity.

A few months ago I decided to invest in an idea; an application that has yet to be built. I was lucky enough to secure 20% equity in the company which overtime will hopefully pay off. While I won’t go into detail about what the app does or how much I invested, I can say it’s in the photography related area and I can see it being big. Over time I’ll be writing more about the app and its progress and documenting the app’s success or failure – hopefully the former. I’m confident in the team who will remain nameless for the moment which includes 2 talented designers and a top notch developer.

There are over 500,000 iPhone apps in circulation right now with hundreds, if not thousands added every day. Trying to stand out amongst the crowd has proven to be a nightmare for a ton of hopeful entrepreneurs who’ve sunk their time and money into creating an app they think people want only to see it slaughtered in the App Store. Meanwhile achieving success in the mobile space I can imagine would be an incredibly stressful and eventful feat that very few have encountered. So naturally this is where I’m heading.

The tipping point for me, I suppose, was watching Bret Victor’s excellent presentation Inventing on Principal. If you are someone that builds things I wholeheartedly recommend that you watch his presentation. In it he suggests finding a principal to build by. Well, I’ve found mine.